


Be One's Own

by EmmG



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Character Study, Dealing with the consequences of being raised by an absent father, F/M, Freeform, Soul-Searching, because a dad like Alec would mess anyone up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmG/pseuds/EmmG
Summary: She isn’t her father’s daughter. She can’t be.





	Be One's Own

**Author's Note:**

> My own father is pretty close to how Alec Ryder was depicted, minus the caring part. I refuse to believe that a person can grow up all happy go lucky without any issues whatsoever with such emotional baggage.

She envies Drack for being chained but to one responsibility. He’ll huff and puff and bash in a few skulls to keep New Tuchanka afloat, but the circle will always close with Kesh. As long as her head remains above water, he’ll die happy.

His responsibility is beloved; hers is circumstantial. His laughs and smiles and chastises him for breaking his old bones time and time again; hers goes out of its way to fracture hers without little true regard. _Are you well, Pathfinder_ , has a drastically different connotation than _What happened to you, old oaf_.

Cora battles inner demons over a matter of loyalty and allegiance. She speaks of Alec Ryder the way a kid babbles on about a hero. She is not alone in that sentiment.

There’s this tiny thing, a little grain of resentment, which takes root in her heart that Ryder will never publicly admit to. If he could be a shining role-model to so many, why were Scott and she always relegated to the sidelines? As family they were meant to be the leading actors in his life, but only ever got acknowledged as understudies.

So she says, “He believed in you,” and a forlorn and pensive Cora allows her features to soften.

Cora finds a moment of peace while she stares, cynical and with knitted eyebrows, at her father’s locked logs.

*

Why did you come to Andromeda, seems to be the question of the hour. So many selfless answers—Suvi’s enthusiasm is infectious, but she has a different kind of faith that keeps her going the likes of which science has long cast aside. Just as many selfish ones carefully embellished as not to appear so—Reyes’ honesty is refreshing.

Why did she come, then? Dad said so.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Captain Dunn tells her in a tone that’s lost all its previous formality. She even pats her shoulder, somewhat hesitant.

“He’s dead,” she says, focused on a point far away in the nothingness. “It’s done.”

In the Milky Way, Scott guarded a Mass Relay while she chased Prothean Artifacts. And still ultimately they weren’t Scott or Sara, not a Peace Keeper and a soldier or the twins. They were Alec Ryder’s children. Great then Crazy then Disgraced Alec Ryder who ultimately became Indispensable six hundred years later. Even in death.

*

What she loves most about Jaal is that he’s an unknown, new variable. Not a constant yet—that will come later—but certainly a factor she’s keen on preserving. What she is, was and will be—it’s all about her. He talks to Sara and Sara alone, never her father’s ghost. And if he ever rattles those dusty old bones, it’s out of interest for her own person.

“Shalom,” he exclaims when she runs into him at the Cultural Center, all smiles. “That is my favorite human greeting.”

“I see. Mazel tov, in that case,” she says.

He flips through a Nexus information booklet, a crease to his brow. “Is that asari?”

“Sure.”

The next day, Lexi is uncommonly silent as she checks her vitals. Until she isn’t. Two elegant fingers drum a steady staccato on the exam table while the scan runs its course.

“Ryder,” she says at last. “Why did Jaal wish me good luck in the human Hebrew dialect?”

“Who knows?” Who knows indeed?

*

There’s so much beauty. The sights past the lush vegetation of Havarl; the songs trapped under the thick ice of Voeld; the rolling, deserted hills of seemingly infinite Elaaden; the escape from customs which Kadara offers along with a knife between the ribs; the sense of new beginning Eos never fails to invoke.

Sometimes, while at the helm of the Nomad, she is just Sara. Nobody’s daughter and no one’s Pathfinder. In the back of the car, Drack is busy pushing Jaal’s buttons and everything is perfect.

While Addison speaks of the new outpost and its ramifications, all she can really say is, “It’s hard to count how many fucks I’ve left to give about Tann.”

“Touché,” Liam points out just as the call ends.

They high-five. They laugh. And this too is perfect. Until a fresh migraine drills through her skull and SAM’s familiar monotone informs her of an unlocked memory.

*

It always takes too long. She should want the truth here and now. Without delay. But she is always on her tiptoes around her father, even when he’s only a phantom laid to rest by all but her. She isn’t sure what would happen to her if a happy occurrence were to flash by—but he was never a witness to those. There’s no point in wondering.

She watches. She thanks SAM. She thinks a father shouldn’t be this stiff around his children.

*

Liam makes it a show to stroll around the Tempest in, well, something. Chest bared like some kind of medieval warrior. It’s not an unpleasant sight.

“What is this shit you’re wearing?” she asks.

“Jaal knit me a poncho,” he proudly announces.

She whistles. “Nice.”

“It is not a poncho,” comes the Angara’s heavily accented voice from the Bio Lab.

“It’s a poncho,” Liam repeats.

Later on, Jaal finds her and he is wringing his hands which causes her eyebrow to ride quite a way up.

“I noticed you are very quiet whenever you return from SAM node,” he remarks.

“Comes with the job,” she says. “Don’t worry about it.”

But he is Jaal. Jaal who somehow managed to end up with a former lover as one of his mothers. Jaal who is all fire and brimstone on the battlefield but fascinated and disoriented in private. It’s in his nature to worry—in his people’s nature, truly—and he knows no other way.

“You seemed to like the rofjinn I made for Liam. It made you smile,” he says.

“It did, yeah.”

A week or so later, he presents her with one of her own, sewn from colored thread to match her eyes. She wears it for a drinking night with Liam who quickly dons his own so they match. They look stupid. Utterly ridiculous. It’s wonderful.

“Nice poncho,” he says, raising a glass of vile Kadara brew.

She nods, well into her cups, the room already spinning. “I know right.”

He’ll never know just how nice. Something new. Something just of _hers_ and _for_ her. Not _a memento of your father’s_ — _this used to be Alec’s_ — _this belonged to your_ —

None of that.

*

It’s hard not to hate her father when the truth comes to the surface.

Out in the open, she embraces her brother. “We’ll see mom again,” she promises.

But when he is gone, when it’s just her and SAM and the frozen husk that’s now her mother, a new kind of rage takes control. She thrashes her father’s quarters. She kicks the rock he has on display where others would have a picture of their family.

“You asshole, you asshole, you fucking selfish asshole,” she mutters. The frenzied mantra spews from her lips until she’s hoarse. Always quiet, always under her breath. None can hear. None can see her like this. Because it’s unbecoming both of Alec Ryder’s kid and a Pathfinder.

He had no right to play god. No right at all to burden his children with what well may be false hope. But what hurts the most is the realization that he did care, did love, but never spoke of it.

She isn’t her father’s daughter. She can’t be.

*

Jaal’s openness is something to embrace. He is something entirely new and he sees her, he’s always seen just her.

“Darling One?” he inquires after finding her in the load out room furiously dismantling any rifle she can get her paws on.

“You know, Jaal”—click, snap, clack—“I think”—barrel, muzzle, grip—“I think, it will be all right.”

“Of course,” he says. “You are Sara Ryder. You are everything.”

She isn’t her father’s daughter. She won’t be. Those who love her will never have to get by on scraps of care and seldom bestowed warmth.

Alec Ryder never showed affection in public, but she’ll kiss whoever she damn pleases before the eyes of the world.


End file.
